This Is The Way It Has To Be
by Artemis of Ephesus
Summary: A post-war fic. A reflection on the events of the war and on life afterwards. Written for the 2009 Remus/Hermione Fic Exchange on LiveJournal.


**This Is The Way It Has to Be**

By Artemis of Ephesus

There is a cold wind which manages to slip through the cracks of the boarded door and its heavy drapes, one which pierces flesh and bone alike. There is little that warming Charms can do for such a cold which penetrates all, for all that helps is to wrap one's cloak tighter around oneself and huddle as close to the iron stove in the centre of the room as one can. Alone, the cold is fierce and terrifying, a force with which to be reckoned. A force which has power over life and death.

She found him here, alone, cold, battered, three months ago, in a simple shack that was not much more than floor, ceiling and walls. She could see that he had been on the move, never staying in one place for long. Now the shack is sparsely furnished with the necessities, a bed, an iron stove, a few well-worn rugs and, of course, a bookshelf with a few well-thumbed titles. She had been searching for him for the past six months, all over the continent, after he had gone into hiding due to the werewolf capture and persecution schemes of the Dark Lord's reign. The years of terror, they were, seven years of death, torture, persecution of Muggleborns and Half-bloods. But the resistance had survived, a glimmer of a light in the darkness. They were underground fighters, working in the light of Muggle flashlights and discussing tactics in secret locations in basements and cellars. They survived.

He survived.

Hermione was a leader of the resistance. She was tough, no one denied that. She had never backed down from a challenge, never let the circumstances bring her down. She fought for the world that she had been adopted into without ever questioning what she was fighting for.

Why?

She did it for _him_, because he was the fuel for the fire that burned within her. He _is_ the fuel.

Remus – his name unspoken for years – was broken, barely surviving in the cold and desolate landscapes he chose to escape from the Dark Lord's spies. The game he hunted was scarce in the winter and he lived in constant fear of someone of the dark finding him, binding him, torturing him. She wanted to bring him back to the world which was being built anew, a world which needed teachers, healers, bright minds and thinkers. Yet he wouldn't leave his solitude, and she found that she would not leave him. The thick snow made it impossible to apparate anywhere with accuracy, and he needed someone.

So they stayed – stay – together, looking after each other, battling each other's demons until they have exorcised them from the consciousness that steers their immediate thoughts and actions.

She waits for him now. The fire has diminished to become only embers glowing in the semi-darkness. If he is not back soon, she will begin to pace the single room of the heavily boarded wooden shack, anxiously chewing her lip, her heart beginning to race. He has gone to get more wood for the fire, direly needed, for the wand that casts the warming Charm can only sustain a Witch or Wizard's magic for so long before slowly draining them of their energy. Magic comes from inside a person, and sometimes there is only so much to give. Every time he goes out she fears for him. It is the fear she has been trying to escape, the fear that one many never see a loved one again when they are sent out on a mission. She runs from the fear and she despises it. But she knows that survival means risk. So much she has learnt.

They have made a home for themselves here, the two of them, together. They have all they need here, warmth (when the wind ceases), comfort, enough food to get by, each other.

_Each other_.

The door swings open and snowflakes drift inside, surrounding a cloaked figure directing a neatly bundled stack of logs over to the wall with his wand. He closes the door quickly and shakes the snow off his heavy cloak and the hood off his face, marred with lines – scars, whose entanglement maps life and death and experience. Hermione thinks they are beautiful. Sometimes, at night, when their bodies are curled up close, she traces those lines with her fingertips, loving their feel under the sensitive pads of skin. Her fingers will dip and meander all over his body, mapping her love and desire for him in fluid motions that leave him groaning her name over and over again. They interlock like the missing pieces of a puzzle which have finally been found, softly, gently, beautifully. They fall asleep locked in each other's embrace.

The logs are stacked neatly against the wall; with a flick of his wrist two of their number join the dying embers in the stove. The cloak is hung on a hook beside the door, where the snowflakes will eventually roll off the waterproofing Charm and melt into a small puddle on the floor. In a moment Hermione is in his arms, her lips crash against his, searching for his warmth, his power. They do not kiss, they devour. Remus throws her up against the wall and traps her with his strong arms, claiming her as his captive, his lover, _his_. She feels his heat as he presses his body against her, burning, even though he has just been outside in the snow. She feels the fire rush through her as one hand fumbles with the fastenings of his underclothes and his mouth attacks her neck and shoulders, teeth ripping at the clasp of her cloak and the layers of clothing underneath to reach her breasts, heaving. She groans and calls out his name, over and over again, whimpering, crying out, her now-short curls glistening with the sweat mopped up from her skin. Layers of fabric covering their bodies are pushed aside as she turns her, shoves her into the wall and enters her forcefully from behind. Her half-covered breasts slam against the wooden boards with every thrust, and they both cry out in frustration and passion and ecstasy before slumping onto the floor in a single heap, limbs entangled.

Such is her life now that she has found Remus. Days are long and drawn out, spent in each other's arms. Hermione begins to tell Remus of what happened for those agonisingly long six years of the reign of terror, but halfway through a conversation she always breaks off, and a tear or two trickle down the side of her face, traversing her own scars. The long, lilac one where Antonin Dolohov hexed her with a flash of purple light, which reaches down her neck and across her chest. It left her battling to stay among the living for four whole days. The embodied memories of Bellatrix Lestrange's cruel, steel knife etching into the skin of her back, slowly, precisely, gleefully. The compare their scars in the deep yellow light of the stove, when all is still but for each other's breathing.

When Harry Potter, for so many years thought the only hope for winning the war refused to give himself up, he gave up the wizarding world with him. But Hermione survived in the centre of the battle. Remus survived inside Hermione's heart. Among so few, they survive, in their own ways, but together. For each other.

_This is the way it has to be._


End file.
